A Dark Thought Experiment

Philosophy, Politics, ,

This is going to be both a Dark and Brutally logical thought experiment. You have been warned.

This is just an experiment. It is not a prediction of what will be, nor even really possible to be. Only what could be. What we will be dealing with is just one possible scenario if Donald J. Trump looses in November 2020. An while this is not a prediction of the future it is as an honest “Threat Assessment“ I can formulate, given the past four years and the actions of both the Trump Administration, MAGA, and the current GOP leadership.

First some postulates:

  1. Trump looses the election with the popular and electoral college
  2. The election in the House and Senate while large is not the “Blue Tsunami”
  3. That the actions in ‘Red” States to minimize election turn out results in incredibly long lines and/or waiting times that leads to many “incidents”.
  4. The GOP/MAGA brings numerous court battles challenging the results in key “swing” states that last till early January 2021
  5. Trump is able to either use the un-identified currently mobilized to put down the protests in several Blue cities like Portland Oregon to “protect” the White House before the inauguration.

Given the above postulates it is quite possible that Donald J. Trump just might refuse to accept the election results and refuses to leave the White House. The question is if the Federal Government would accept his position. Would the current AG leave office or would AG Barr attempt to stay in office and protect Trump. What about the acting heads of DHS and/or the FBI? What would they do? What could they do legally? What could be done against them if they try to stay in office past 20 January 2021?

Finally, just to add a little spice to the mix, where will the nuclear “Football” be in January 2021? If it is still in the West Wing what will the person caring it do? What will be his/her orders from the Pentagon dealing with Trump refusing to leave office?

Could we be on the way to a new Civil War?

Love to hear your ideas so please share.

The Time has Come

General, Philosophy, Politics, , , , ,

The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
      To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
      Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
      And whether pigs have wings.’

Over the past few weeks I have been feeling more and more like I have both “fallen down the rabbit hole” and gone “Thru the Looking Glass” at the same time. It is mostly because of the rampant insanity I’m seeing around me. In the middle of the greatest pandemic in a hundred years we have both people who should know better telling us it is:

  1. All a hoax
  2. It will be over “Real Soon Now”
  3. 100,000+ death are acceptable
  4. Trust me, not the scientists, I know better
  5. It’s all a plot to defeat Donald Trump’s re-election

The above is not an exhaustive list, just what I can remember right now. But beyond the above I’ve started to hear people not on the far left, more like the middle left, thinking the unthinkable. That the GOP, the MAGAs, and Donald Trump will use the pandemic to suppress enough voter turn out. To delay the vote count due to record number of mail-in ballots. To challenge the election results when and if Trump looses both the popular and elector votes.

I am not going to be a miss Pollyanna here. I am going to try to just point out that unlike the little oysters we need to listen to the wise ones and not follow the Walrus and the Carpenter, lest we be eaten.

Coming Next: A dark Thought Experiment or Two

The Real Deplorables

General
Child Sacrifice

Back in 2015/16 when some people were calling the Supporters of Donald J. Trump “Deplorables” I thought it was inappropriate and a bad idea. In 2020 I no longer think so. I owe this to the actions of people during the COVID-19 pandemic. An here is why.

Today, for the first time, I had a running with a person who not only got on the bus I was on with out a mask, she refused to put one on. Now I admit I was loud and less than polite but she was worse. She parroted all the nonsense coming out of the White House on why she wasn’t wearing a mask. To add insult to injury not long after I gave up another person, wearing a mask improperly (her noise was uncovered) and sat down next to the unmasked lady. No social distancing at all. An proceeded to chatter away. Obviously a friend.

It is this uncaring attitudes that I find so deplorable. This is a Pandemic we are in. The Covid-19 virus doesn’t react in anyway to a persons political beliefs, unless those beliefs make you act in a way that enables the virus to spread to new hosts/victims. Those people who do not follow the recommendations of the CDC: to Ware a mask, keep a 6’ distance between people, and washing hands are not showing their disdain of science but also how little they think of others.

These are the true Deplorables. Those people who care not one iota of the welfare of others and only for themselves. Back in 2015/16 it wasn’t easy to identify just who these people are, now it is not. Anyone who isn’t wearing a mask today is proclaiming to the everyone they meet that they are proudly a Deplorable.

Next: What to do.

Problem with Masks

General
N95 Mask

I just had a conversation on Facebook involving people who don’t like wearing masks (like the N95 mask above) because the “can’t breath” or it “effects their breathing”, etc. Unfortunately i took it as an actual cry for help and answered with cold logic. Before I get started here let me give my bonifides.

First, to my knowledge, I have almost died from both pneumonia (at lest twice) and croup at lest once but I think many more times). This has left me with both a physiological and psychological after effects. The physiological effect is a breath reflex that has to be seen to believe. The psychological is that I suffer from hydrophobia (fear of water/drowning). My reaction to anything that restricts, in anyway, has to be seen to believed. Even something like the sensor used by a polygraph to monitor breathing sets me off. (It means I can’t take a polygraph, ever. It shows I’m always lying.) Finally I have a heart condition that limits the amount of oxygen blood that circulates and if I punch myself I get out of breath.

Given my back ground I have always been curious about breathing. Back in the 80’s I found out that it is the concentration of CO2 in the air that controls our breath reflex. (Note: given the age of y data if anyone out there has more up to date information pleas leave a link.) Also in the 80’s i had to be checked out with a full face mask so I could be cleared to go into a ‘Clean Room’, which I never had to do. I did find out at the time that all ‘cloth’ mask did not interfere with the passage of CO2/O2 to any measurable degree. What most people are reacting to is the warmth of the air and the increased humidity of the air, which cloth mask do effect.

Lastly, the only person I have ever know who could not ware a cloth mask was a lady who had lost the use of something like 80% of her lungs do to T.B. And she had a special breathing mask she used for protection against infections.

Give the above, if you think wearing a mask is restricting or in anyway affecting your breathing I can, and do draw the following inferences.

I) Your reaction is psychosomatic and you may have an issue you are not aware of and you need to seek help. Or you are aware of it and haven’t lurked how to deal with it completely and professional help is also recommended. I my case I just had to learn not to panic. Not easy, let me tell you, but it is possible to do. If I can learn to swim, you can learn to wear a cloth mask. Trust me.

II) You have, possibly unknown to you, physiological problem. Possible either with your heart and/or lungs. You need to see your Doctor about it.

III) You are ill and something, like Covid-19, is interfering with your breathing. Also call your Doctor.

Now that we are thru all the actual problems facing you it could be you just can’t stand the humid ware breath you just expelled. You need to find a mask that works for you as the basic cloth mask isn’t it.

What it is not is a reason not to wear a mask. Nor does it justify your getting upset with people ask you to wear a mask.

So Wear the Mask already.

It’s Time to Remember

General

Over the past few days I have been hearing more and more “talking heads” make comments about how the “Baby Boomers” elected Donald Trump because they see themselves loosing control. Or they don’t want things to change, or they see the electorate demographics are changing. Well it is not all “Boomers” who think that way.

I am probably the quint essential “Baby Boomer” being born in March of 1951. My teenage years were the years of the civil rights protests, the race riots, and the anti-war protesters. I’d like to remind my fellow “Baby Boomers” that way back in 1968 we had a saying “Don’t trust anyone over 30”. An I’d like to take the time for us to remember that that world. Remember just what we thought of are parents and grand-parents. And I want to share something my parents said at the time “It is time to listen to our children, it is going to be their world.”

I’d also like to remind my fellow “Boomers” that we are not going to be the ones to live in the future, it is our children, grand-children, etc, who will be living in it. An we have a duty to them to hand it over gracefully to them. We need to do what we can to help them and we need to stand with them against the reactionary forces who resists change.

When it comes to change the Borg are right “Resistance is futile.” There is nothing we or they can do about it, things change and all we can do is try and make it the best change possible for those who come after us. That is why I used the image from the 1968 movie “Wild in the Streets”. It’s a bit of an exploitation flick and is definitely schlocky but it does illustrate my point. It shows just exactly how some of the power structure in this country saw the “youth rebellion” of the 1960’s.

I suggest anyone who thinks the current youth who have been protesting in the streets the past week are poorly behaved, or wrong, I suggest you watch it and work to remember just where you were at in 1968, how you looked at the world and how you thought. You just might find some understanding for just what this kids are marching about and you just might join them.

A Problem Facing the MAGA

Medical, Philosophy, ,
MAGA

With the Covid-19 (aka Coronavirus) pandemic entering it’s fourth month and the slow, if not laggardly, actions of Pres. Trump and his fellow MAGAs to fight this pandemic. The biggest problem is that like all MAGA Pres. Trump does not really understand the age in which we live.

This is the Information Age.when everything you say in public can, and often is, recorded for all time. More than that it can, and will, be shared with the entire world with in hours, if not minutes. An unlike MiniTrue in 1984 it is not possible for any government to control what information is peeing shared. So we have the problem facing the Governor of Georgia saying that he just found out that asymptotic people can spread the infection. With in minutes he was show to be either 1) a liar 2) ignorant beyond belief or 3) a total fool.

This is the problem of the use of the “Leadership Priciple” as first formalized in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. You have to be shown ‘leading’ and it must conform to your exposed political principles (even if it has nothing to do with politics) and you just may get it wrong. But as the ‘Leader’ you can’t be wrong, so now what? Back in the middle of the 20th century it was possible for government and big businesses to make the unpleasant truth to disappear down the memory hole.

There are several great examples of this in history the one I like the best was how Stalin was able to make one of the biggest communists of the revolution just disappear from wall USSR records. Photographs and all. But it was not just in communist states has this happened, nor just in the 20th century. This has been going on since before recorded records. Until now.

With the arrival of electronic computers, the internet and the ‘cloud’ it has become almost impossible for anything, truth of lie, to disappear down the memory hole. Now what happens is the truth is buried under an avalanche of lies and other ‘the real truth’. But do not loose hope. We also have the tools to protect the truth and it too is as old as history. Critical Thinking and the simple fundamental principle that the universe is non-partisan.

Something like Covid-19 does not, in fact can not, care what the leaders want. It will do what the natural laws of the universe dictate. If our leaders refuse to acknowledge this and we don’t do ‘social distancing’ and we let profiteers practice ‘classical’ capitalism and the ‘privileged few’ think it “can’t happen here” then we will have a great pandemic here with many deaths that would not have happened if they, the leaders, had acted as the medical specialist recommended.

Remember “The piper is Always Paid.”

Now is the Times that Try Mens Souls

Medical, ,
Plague Doctor

Just under 244 years ago, in 1776, Thomas Paine started his epic pamphlet to urge all Americans to come to the aid of their country in it’s time of need. An while it was written at the start of a war with an infinitely more powerful foe I still think the spirit of “The American Crisis” is appropriate for today.

The Covid-19 pandemic is on the way to being the greatest crisis to actually strike the Americans in their homes since the American Civil War. An yes, I’m including the “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918/19. Unlike the “Spanish Flu” this crisis is not just medical, but also economic and quite possibly political. An it will not end with ending the “Stay at Home” order, be it four more weeks or eight or twelve more weeks.

The economy is going to change a great deal in the next few years. People are learning that work can be done at home. That it is not really necessary to have everyone crowded into a office. People will learn that they don’t need to go to the local Mall to do most of their shopping. I have no idea what is going to happen to the restaurant business but it too will be changing. What I can say is that I’m looking for a change in how America does business that will be as large and earth shaking as the changes I’ve seen in my life time. Only it won’t happen over 50 years but more like 5.

So now is the time for every American to get ready to step forth and do their best to make the changes as good as possible. Now is when we stop with blaming and start helping. Now is to fix a problem or potential problem when we discover it. As Pain said 244 years ago the “Sunshine Patriot” will shirk his duty then they will shirk it now. Now is when we must be ever vigilant for those who will seek to take advantage of the crisis for their own person gain, and stop them. We need to stop them where ever they spring up, and they will spring up, every time they spring up. An not just for the duration of medical crisis, but during the rebuilding over the next few years.

You don’t need to do anything big or showy, in fact the small and un-noticed will do more good when we all do it together.

In closing: “Take care of each other and be safe.”

A small Policy Update

General
Death Dealer

It has been suggested to me that I explain an action I, and chief cook and bottle washer of this blog just what has been going on here the last few weeks. I was reading up on both spam and other hacking activities in preparation for the coming election when I read about some ‘bots’ using blog pages like mine to post to carry out some of their nefarious activities. In checking out all of the “people” who had become users I noticed that other than two people I know are actual people (I’ve seen them in the flesh) no a one had actually posted anything. Not a comment one. So after installing some new anti spam Plugins and tools I did some checking.

Everyone was either a known Spammer site, Hacker site, or quite questionable. So I deleted them all. To anyone else who wants to add comments to my posting, and I’d love to have them. I’m now asking you to post a comment on this ore some other posting so I know you are not a Bot. Otherwise, if you just want to ‘lurk’ you still can, but you may get yourself deleted. Sorry but it is all part of my effort to fight Russian et al interference.

Super Tuesday in California

Politics, ,
I want you to Vote
I want you to vote

For all of you who do not live in California I wish to explain just why this years Primary Election is such a big deal (at lest to me). I’ve been voting since 1974 and following elections since 1968 and this is the first time, ever, that the California Primary has ever really meant something.

For as long as I remember the parties candidate for President was always a forgone conclusion by the time California had it’s primary election. This was for a very simple reason, the California Primary was always the first Tuesday in June. Long after most of the other states had held theirs. This was true for both the Democrats and the Republicans. For any political party no mater how big or small, California just did not mater. Except for fund raising California was totally ignored. But not this year!

Well, almost.

California does matter, and we have been talked about in the National media, a little bit. Not as much as Texas but I have heard the word California a time or two on the news. I even saw one of the news shows have have their star actually be. In Santa Monica yesterday. Most of the reasoning given is that in the Democratic Primary most of the “experts” are saying that Senator Sanders will pick up the lion’s share of our 415 delegates. I say wait and see. California is not nearly as monolithic as the rest of the country seems to think. We like to go our own way.

So to all of y fellow Californians I say “Get Out And Vote!” Lets show all the ‘so called experts’ that we really do matter. That we are not just a place to come to raise money and celebrity endorsements. That they need our vote if they expect to win.

An to all of you other folks in Super Tuesday states, get out and Vote. You mater too.

Super Tuesday!

Politics, ,

This is NOT just my usual get out and vote posting. In one week it will be Super Tuesday and for the first time since I started voting way back in 1972 my vote in the California primary will matter. Every time before, when we voted in June, the parties candidates had already been decided. I can not tell you what a bummer that was.

This year California is a player! Sure there are a lot of other states playing but none of them come close to being as big as California in delegate count at 415 up for grabs. An thank God, we are not a winner take all state this year. So your vote is going to mater because to get even 1 delegate a candidate is going to be ‘viable’ what ever that means. The process is both complex and confusing but all you need to know is that your vote matters to every candidate to get to the magic percentage of 15%. (Don’t ask me 15% of what, I don’t know but you can look it up on Google if it is important to you.). So get out and vote!

As for who to vote for, I’m not going to say. Most of the candidates are good people who just might do a good job as President. In fact there are only two I think will not do the job, and I’m not going to tell you who they are. Why? Because this post is about getting you out to vote for the person you think will do the best job. That’s right, not the person who you think can beat Donald J. Trump, not the “Most Electable”, no, the one who will do the best job. The one you think will do the best for you, who you agree with and who will do the things you would do if you could.

So if you are like me and still thinking about it I ask you to watch the debates tonight and see who you like. See who you hate and see who doesn’t do anything one way or another. Then go and do a little research on line, or go talk/text/etc with your friends and neighbors and see what they thought. Then think about just what kind of nation you want to live in. Then vote for the best candidate to bring that about.

VOTE